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Music Media Your Rights Online

Fair Use Computer Game 138

Posted by michael from the knowing-is-half-the-battle dept.
mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) together with Privacyactivism has released an interactive video game designed to educate players about their privacy and fair use rights. The game is focused on digital rights management technologies, online spyware, and data profiling servers. We have seen similar games in Sweden from the Anti-piracy Bureau and Flash movies from BSA in the US, however striking a different tune. Play Carabella." Cute idea.
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Fair Use Computer Game More

Fair Use Computer Game

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  • damn... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Em Emalb ( 452530 ) <ememalb@gm a i l . com> on Thursday June 20, 2002 @05:55AM (#3735027) Homepage Journal
    "Carabella is a modern girl. She's hip. She's wired."...and she's got huge jugs, so the /. crew should love it! wohoo! Bring on the large pixelated breasts!

    Of course, sex sells, so go for it EFF!

    If you like the game....donate.

    • Re:damn... (Score:3, Funny)

      by oever ( 233119 )
      Of course, sex sells, so go for it EFF!

      I like the slogan:

      Carabella warez me out

    • Re:damn... (Score:3, Funny)

      by gentix ( 559742 )
      "...and she's got huge jugs, so the /. crew should love it! wohoo! Bring on the large pixelated breasts!"

      *sigh*...

      I guess some people really only look at a girl's breasts...

      I mean... have you seen that blue face?
      Or that purple hair?
      Would you really want to have sex with a smurf?

      tsk tsk...

    • EW! Re:damn... (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by SkyLeach ( 188871 )
      She's got blue hair and fallow grey-blue skin...

      That's got Krackedout Kandy Kid Raver written all over her. Man I knew the EFF did drugs but even their games?

      Oh dear God, I just got a mental picture of RMS gettin' it down to da breakbeats!

      • Re:EW! Re:damn... (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by SkyLeach ( 188871 )
        I'm sick of motherfucking moderation crap going to shit on slashdot. This was supposed to be funny, and it was most DEFINITELY ON TOPIC.

        The topic: the game produced by the EFF.

        What am I talking about? The character in the game? If that's not on topic, nothing is.

        You don't like it: fine, don't read it. But don't fucking bury it with "Offtopic" when it's not.

        Slashdot is turning into a whorehouse for pussy brats with nothing better to do than screw up a good news site.

        Fuck it, I got my 50 karma a long time ago. I don't need this shit so I'm just going to read from now on and let the comments go to hell where they belong.

  • No info... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lennart78 ( 515598 )
    Too bad the 'game' didn't really give me any background info.
    "I might have infringed copyrights." What if I did?
    Are they coming to get me now?
    • They offer the answer to the question: 'What can I do within the bounds of copyright?'

      You want an answer for the question can I get away with doing something 'illegal' and what happens when I get caught. That's a different game.

  • Tinsel Town Club (Score:3, Informative)

    by Hal Roberts ( 5525 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:02AM (#3735038) Homepage
    Also check out http://action.eff.org/tinseltown/ [eff.org].
    • Oh geeze, this thing rocks so hard I can barely stay on my chair. :)

      I've already sent the link to dozens of friends. And you?
      • "I've already sent the link to dozens of friends. And you?"

        Well, it failed to load in Mozilla1, so I had to use internet explorer to run it... is it one of my privacy preferences? Maybe my "no animations" policy, but it definitely didn't work in 'standard' mozilla.

        Nonetheless, I've linked it from my site, so those 73% who are using IE can see it... the people with proper browsers know about the music issues anyway.

  • great (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:07AM (#3735051) Homepage Journal
    This "game" seems all too reminiscent of the kind of "edutainment" that the War on Drugs has been pumping out. If parents want their children to love liberty, then they should teach them about it when the children are old enough to understand. Trying to brainwash them with video games will work until they're 15, at which point they'll run away from home, become pot-addicted prostitutes, and join the Christian Coalition.

    • Re:great (Score:2, Interesting)

      by destinyland ( 578448 )
      The problem with educational games is that there's a second message. It's okay to buckle to peer pressure -- if it's from people who design video games.

      Shouldn't children be taught to make up their own minds instead of imitating whatever the funky lady in the Carabella cartoon does? Otherwise, you're right. It's no better than those old anti-drug agit-prop Nintendo game [seanbaby.com] like Wally Bear and the 'No' Gang.

      ---
      Destiny-land [blogspot.com].
      The happiest blog on earth.

      • Re:great (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mOdQuArK! ( 87332 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @12:57PM (#3737508)
        Shouldn't children be taught to make up their own minds...

        Up to a certain age (actual age determined by "maturity" level), most children don't really want to make up their own minds - they want their parents/guardians to tell them what's wrong & right. That gives them a moral base which they can incrementally adjust as they get more life experience.

        It's not too hard to imagine a kid raised by someone who _really_ let the kid "make up his/her own mind". The term "spoiled brat" comes to mind.

    • Run over people in your porsche, have body parts blow up when you fire off a mini tactical nuke, that dude high on pcp throwing dumpsters at you.

      So this anti-piracy game may be fun, so I'll download it off warez.
    • hmm... is this "the phonics game" for the technically challenged?
  • a Q3 or UT mod would of been more popular

    just imagine, running around fragging bots called B3D and the other spyware/adware etc... stuff, now that IMHO would be fun :)

  • Lessons learned (Score:5, Insightful)

    by juliao ( 219156 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:07AM (#3735053) Homepage
    Having played the game, here is what I learned:

    Don't look for music online, unless you're willing to obtain it illegally.

    The best place to legally buy music is still a record shop.

    Import albums give you more rights than most US releases.

    Summing it up, if you want your rights back, stay offline and move abroad.

    • Re:Lessons learned (Score:5, Insightful)

      by skotte ( 262100 ) <iamthecheeze@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday June 20, 2002 @07:49AM (#3735340) Homepage
      yeah, thats what i got too. i 'played' all branches of possibility (i'm bored, wot of it?) and the highest 'scaore' i got was fFrom buying the CD in store. a point to not take lightly kids.

      maybe this will get trolled down., but here's my viewpoint: if you like a band, go buy their fFriggin CD. i have a couple fFriends who insist it is a poliical stance to buy or not buy, and will give some lengthy debate on which CDs should be purchased. but they tend tomiss the one big point. you arent just lining the pockets of the RIAA. you are supporting somehing you like. you are paying the guy behind the counter (who is probably just a fFinancially instable kid like you).

      plus, as our girl carabella fFound out, P2P is time consuming! so it's not really fFree, is it?

      ok, i'm done. don't [troll] me, please.

    • Re:Lessons learned (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Enry ( 630 )
      But the first batch of protected CDs were from outside the US. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

    • Re:Lessons learned (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @08:37AM (#3735566)
      "Don't look for music online, unless you're willing to obtain it illegally."

      Call me crazy, but I was under the impression that just as you can find both legally and illegally distributed software online and just as you can find both legally and illegally distributed books online, you can find both legally and illegally distributed music online.

      Mp3.com [mp3.com] comes to mind as a place where you can download legally distributed music for free. Emusic.com [emusic.com] appears to be legally distributing mp3s for a fee.

      I'm sure the music traded on venues such as Kazaa or IRC is more likely to be illegally distributed, but to characterize all online music as being illegal is absurd.

      • Re:Lessons learned (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The game addressed this. The problem encountered by the character was that the music she was looking for wasn't available on the "legit" online sites because the major lable involved wasn't licensing there. There was one subscription service that had it, but only in a proprietary format. One of the goals was to get it in a format that could be played on any of her regular music devices (mp3 player, computer CD-ROM, burned to a mix CD for the car, etc.).

        The scenarios are a bit manufactured... they deliberately choose the worst of all worlds to make their point (copy-protected CD only available online in a proprietary format). But if the RIAA gets their way, that'll be the only possible world, so it's a point that needs making.
    • "Summing it up, if you want your rights back, stay offline and move abroad."

      Or buy an MP3.com CD, and tell anyone who likes it they can download the whole album for free if they've got the bandwidth, or they can listen online.

      I didn't get the "import" bit of that game though. Perhaps it's because I'm English, but we don't generally get a choice between "expensive" and "cheaper but crippled" CDs, they're just all expensive!

      Anything with copy protection is going straight back to the store for a refund. There's a limit to what I'll put up with before I call the trading standards department.

  • The Game.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dcavens ( 178673 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:08AM (#3735054)
    First off, it's a pretty sad game. Basically propaganda.

    Would anyone actually 'play' this who wasn't interested already to know the entire content of the game?

    Content of the Game:
    • Buying CDs allows you to have fair use rights.
    • Buying Copyrighted CDs takes away those rights.
    • Downloading MP3s preserves those rights, but may involve copyright violations.
    • Kazaa is not very nice.


    That's about the extent of the game.

    Why not just send out a press release?

    • Re:The Game.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by autrijus ( 48596 )
      Buying Copyrighted CDs takes away those rights.

      Of course, you mean 'Copy-protected' CDs. Non-copyrighted (public domain) CDs are probably not selled in retail stores. :)

      That's about the extent of the game.
      Why not just send out a press release?

      Perhaps. But then, the algorithm used in Civilizations, SimCity or other highly-addictive games (except for Nethack) could probably boil down to a few bullet lists as well.

      The point of a game is the experience that made the player identify with the protagonist -- a press release would be a highly ineffective way to accomplish that.

    • Why not just send out a press release?

      Maybe because in this day and age, some folks don't have the attention span to read a press release, but they will play a game that even vaguely seems "kewl"... even if it is just to see the outcome. There's typically more than one way to get your message across... and online advertisers have found that they get better click-through rates with little games that are also advertisements in some markets, so maybe the EFF is on to something. I'm sure that the information communicated in the game is available in more condensed form on the EFF website, for those folks who don't like to wander around in a game for a while.
    • This is so the EFF can plainly show that computer games are speech too, and should be protected under the firest ammendment. Take a look at this older slashdot article: Salon on Video Games and Free Speech [slashdot.org].

      W

    • > Why not just send out a press release?
      Well, because the want to reach Fred Foobar who loves games but falls asleep when reading boring press releases? This is _the_ way to spread awareness to the masses! Way to go, EFF!
  • going to be as good as TuxRacer?

  • you can't get 100% (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xQx ( 5744 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:08AM (#3735056)
    It's impossable.
    If you use any of their listed p2p networks you pirate music and loose privacy.
    If you subscribe you don't get your mp3 player working.
    If you go out and buy the non-copyprotected CD, you loose money, thus points.

    That game sucks. ... Did I mention flash was evil? :)

    Still, It's good to raise awareness. See if I can head off a few "snowball fight" emails by replying with a url to this page and a "if you forward it to 10 people in the next 20 mins something funny will pop up on your screen. I don't know how" message. That should inform the people in need :)
    • The reason is to get you to go back and try all the other options so you learn the respective consequences. About the only thing they missed was going to the band's website to see if they had any mp3's available for download.

    • Re:you can't get 100% (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Stipe ( 35684 )
      More to the point, the only way I can see of getting 100% by their rating system is to not spend any money. If the record store had sold a non copy protected CD at a reasonable price, (which to my mind is the best solution, if available), the score would be 92: 100-8 for spending money.

      Does the EFF think that you should be able to obtain artist's work and not pay any money?
      • Does the EFF think that you should be able to obtain artist's work and not pay any money?

        pro'lly what it is is that a lot of people have that as their goal and the EFF is attempting to show that you can't do it (unless the band wants you too).

        MIKE
      • How about listening to music at a friend's place? Downloading free music from artists' websites? And what about webcasts...oh nevermind :-(

    • Re:you can't get 100% (Score:5, Funny)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @07:45AM (#3735320)
      A strange game. The only way to win is not to play. How about a nice mp3 from an independant artist's web site?
    • .... if you hack the game. :)

      Kobyashi Maru, anyone?
    • Yeah, and you should have the option to buy the copy-protected CD and a felt-tip marker.

      When circumvention devices are outlawed, only outlaws will own felt-tip pens.

    • "It's impossible."

      I believe that was their point. If you want to buy music now, you're not left with a lot of options. Even if you get a 'real' CD for a good price, you'll still be financing the industry which is hiring the lawyers to make you a criminal.

      Surprisingly, it does get worse. Even if you support independant small artists and buy CDs directly, each time you go into a pub (bar), shopping centre (mall) or any public place with music playing, you're subsidising the "top 100" artists in the popular music chart.

      "The day the music died"

  • Eh? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ins0m ( 584887 )
    Okay, so I'm bored and on lunch break, so I played the game. Seems there's no way to get 100%. Is there? Unless she steals the import CD, of course... but that's not an option. It's just a way to promo their efforts to get people behind their cause... Yet, no one in real life will score "100%" either because there is always going to be a cost, unless you download from a P2P system. Of course, then you get copyright infringement issues. The real option should have been, buy the cheaper CD, then d/l the songs you then own. You've paid for use of the music, so use it. Or, maybe, download a ripper that recognizes and overwrites the copy-protection bit. ;)

  • Can anyone post a walkthrough? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bollie ( 152363 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:26AM (#3735084)
    I didn't get full score...

    Does anyone know a cheat for this game?

    BTW, I'm also looking for the No-CD patch...

    Oh yes, and my dog ate my serial number. Can anyone help me?

    Thanks!

    (Parody of posts that usually go up on forums as soon as a game is released... Guess it won't be happening here! Trust the EFF to take all those kinds of fun away...)
  • In Episode 1 of the game, you will follow Carabella as she tries to find and buy music by her favorite band, Cradle of Filth. Carabella has various choices about how she can get the music. Each of these different choices involves different rights managements, which somehow end up screwing her in the end.

    If you/Carabella download the album from online, you will be jailed. Your family will hate you. And you will never marry Prince Lance from N'Sync.

    If you decide to get a job, you can do so in two ways. You can either go to the burger stand and get an injury on the job, or hook yourself on the street, and get a life-threatening illness.

    The game's scoring system reflects the real-life trade-offs that face fans looking for music online. Carabella gets points for getting her music, and for cooking swedish meatballs in her spare time. She loses points for dying (doesn't everyone)?

    At the end of episode 1, she will meet up with a drunken sounding dinosaur named Jar jar, and pick up a little boy along the way (Yippee!).

    In episode 2, this boy grows up to sexually harass her. It is your choice to determine the destiny of Carabella. Carabella gains points for slapping the pervert teenager and calling him a bad actor, while loses points for swooning over cheesy lines.

    At the end of episode 2, a little green computerized muppet comes in, and kicks the RIAA's ass. He then uses the force to demand sexual favors from Carabella's weak mind, and fathers a full-sized alien named Greedo.

    At the end of the saga, Carabella discovers that Charlton Heston is her father (but no, that's impossible). She retires to an institute on Dagobah, and is thrown into the swamp after a young Jedi fails to keep her suspended it midair.

    Damn, I can't wait.

  • This is a good thing for those people who are not aware of what is going on out there in the digital world in America. It might just shine some needed light on it. The only problem is that nobody but geeks will probably see this and the crimes of the politicians that are screwing the American people of their Privacy and other Online rights goes unnoticed until something major happens and it's far to late. A crying shame actually.
  • EFF really hedged on the issue of using P2P networks... they said by downloading the band's tunes (sold at a normal CD store), you "may" have violated copyright.

    Well duh, of course you did. I know there may be 100% legal uses of P2P networks, but the scenario described in the game doesn't come close to any of them. (And thus the game fails to fully illustrate how the current system sucks for someone committed to not breaking the law.) But I guess if it gets kids to read all that legalistic interpretation of what may and may not be legal, it's worth the hedging, eh? Carabella definitely violated copyright in that scenario. Am I missing something?

    Still, their 'faq' of sorts [eff.org] was pretty good at addressing a lot of issues in a reasonably short space.

    --LP
    • I know there may be 100% legal uses of P2P networks, but the scenario described in the game doesn't come close to any of them.

      Sure it does - the Secret Irises may have given fans permission to share the music on a P2P network. This is not likely if the band is signed to a major label (we don't really know in this example), but if the band is unsigned or on a small label, they may prefer the exposure possible with free music to "protecting their intellectual property". In my old band, we made mp3's and shared them on Napster because we could make more money if more people heard our music than if we charged $10-$15 for a CD (which you wouldn't buy unless you heard the band first, usually). The recordings were a tool to get people to come to the shows, where a big crowd could get us $400-$500 dollars, just for playing music and drinking free-as-in-beer beer.

      But of course, if the band is owned by a label, then they don't get any say in distribution and they have to make do with eight to twelve cents per sale.

      • I presumed that, if the band had CDs for sale in the store, both copy protected and imported CDs and if they were on RealPlay and MusicPress (or whatever), that A) that means the band is on a non-trivial label, and B) that label would not allow P2P copying of the albums (I know of no label that does that has all those distribution channels.)

        But perhaps I'm being pedantic. I get your point. It'd be a lot clearer if the EFF said that.

        --LP
    • If you have alread purchased a copy of the song in question, it's a legal grey area (IANAL, etc, etc). You might download a song you already own because it's a convenient way to listen on your computer, because your CD is at home and you're at work, because you want to play it for a friend, because the album has been lost, stolen, or damaged.

  • Thanks for the recommendations - NOT (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spackler ( 223562 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @07:24AM (#3735246) Journal
    So, I go to the site.
    Play the game
    It tells me I should surf anonymously.
    I try the privacy.net page to see what I leave behind.
    I go to the recommended www.anonymizer.com.
    Put in the privicy.net page to check what they really do:

    -------------
    This Page is available with an Aonymizer subscription

    WHY IS THE PAGE UNAVAILABLE
    The Anonymizer Free Trial version restricts access to some web sites in order to keep the service working quickly and efficiently, without overloading.

    Sites most often restricted include gaming, casino, adult, career, and web email sites. Other sites may be restricted at random as well.

    Our Full Version premium service DOES NOT restrict access to any pages, costs less than $5 per month, and has many more features than the free version. Sign up now!
    ---------------
    So, in order to check out what they are trying to sell me, I need to subscribe?

    On to the next (rewebber):
    ---------------
    WELCOME TO REWEBBER!
    You are a registered user of our regular service? Please press the button

    You do not have a valid Rewebber account yet? We are very pleased about your interest and give you the option to test our service for free.
    Please register for your test account
    ---------------
    Registering REQUIRES an email account that they will send a testing password to (sure, mail accounts are easy to come by, but it is kind of a bother to just have a look at the results.

    NEXT: http://www.multiproxy.org

    No Data. This is a site that appears to exist to sell ads to you in the most annoying way they can. It's a freeware thing you load and appears to - damn, another ad floated in and blocked that part of the page.

    Next: www.inetprivacy.com
    35 bucks. Although it says you can download from a broken link.

    ---------------

    Overall, pretty bad results from the EFF recommended way of surfing without leaving a trail.

    Spackler

    PS: I ran these from IE (hence the floating ads that I had not seen in a while). Man, this is how people surfed before Mozilla?
    • Internet Junkbuster for the uninformed... now in a nice prog called Privoxy over at sourceforge... kills the most, they got one broken filter that's annoying sometimes but besides that I almost don't edit the actions file

      Kjella
    • The biggest problem with paying for anonymizers is that as soon as they have your name and address from you paying for it, suddenly you're not anonymous anymore...there goes the whole point.

    • Although Multiproxy does have a program available for download, they also have a fairly extensive list of public HTTP proxies.

      While I haven't tried the vast majority of them, some at least, DO work at masking the user's true IP address.

      You can change your browser's proxies very simply:

      With Mozilla/Navigator - Edit > Preferences > Adnvacned > Proxies

      With IE - Tool > Internet Options... > Connections > LAN Settings... And specify a proxy.

      That's all there is to it!

  • Did the RIAA get permission from Activision for the Pitfall scene in their movie?
  • "U.S. Middlemen Demand Protection From Being Cut Out
    WASHINGTON, DC--Some 20,000 members of the Association of American Middlemen marched on the National Mall Monday, demanding protection from such out-cutting shopping options as online purchasing, factory-direct catalogs, and outlet malls. "Each year in this country, thousands of hard-working middlemen are cut out," said Pete Hume, a Euclid, OH, waterbed retailer. "No one seems to care that our livelihood is being taken away from us." Hume said the AAM is eager to work with legislators to find alternate means of passing the savings on to you."


    Seems to mirror the ??AA stance on online sales. I know it's off-topic, but if these ??AA's would just look ahead then you could get 100% score on this stupid game!

  • So if I choose Limewire, there is no privacy issues? Audio Galaxy is -25 in score and Kazaa is -40.
    The last time I saw Limewire, it was the most spyware infested software I have ever but maybe that has changed?
    The end text mentions loss of privacy when using AudioGalaxy and Kazaa, but not Limewire? So what am I missing here. Has Limewire cleaned up their act? Or are their spying just not as bad as the others?
    • The last time I saw Limewire, it was the most spyware infested software I have ever but maybe that has changed?

      If you pay for it (less than $10), you get no spyware. If you download the source (free, but I think it's an older version) and compile it, you get no spyware.

  • Bonzi buddy? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Openadvocate ( 573093 )
    So, the game links to a site http://www.multiproxy.org/ [multiproxy.org] which seems to me to have ad's for that infernal Bonzi buddy, a spyware program.
    The site contains a list of open proxies that you can use to anonymize your surfing.
    it seems to me that the list is made from a scan and in the end the page reads:
    "Disclaimer: this list is provided for information purposes only. Use it on your own risk. Legally you need to ask a permission to use any of the proxy servers in this list. I shall not be responsible for any damages of any kind arising out of use of these servers and the list itself."
    So, I know that we could start a discussion about people not securing their proxies have really asked for it. But still I think that these things it does not really give the game a lot of credibility. But maybe that's just me. :)
  • I think it will be hard for people to take this game seriously until the EFF's web designers learn to correctly code special characters into their text. As I was going through the game I saw "nbsp;" all over the place! The best example of this was in the online retailer frame (go to it from the index, it's faster). The balloon that pops up when you click on the "privacy" button has a row of eleven "nbsp;"s that look like they're being used to position the "close" button on the right.

    Having done a little (very little) Flash development, I'm pretty sure that you don't need to resort to playing that kind of trick to position things. And how hard is it to remember that codes for special characters start with an "&"?

    I hope that this game was the result of someone's volunteer effort. I know that the EFF works on a very limited budget, so perhaps hiring high-quality web design talent wasn't a high priority. I just can't help but wonder, though, if the people who approved it were just staring at Carabella's jugs through the entire presentation...
  • Okay, I know the story was about the EFF's cute little game, but after watching that BSA thing, I have something I need to say about them, and [graphics] software in general.

    First off, */sarcasm* you have no idea how many software packages I've paid for with money I picked up while on a quest, inside my computer, to destroy an evil virus. */sarcasm* ;)

    Now, seriously. Why is every useful piece of graphics software like $500 and up? Your average private individual who may want such software, because of an interest in a particular profession, isn't likely to be able to afford it.

    For instance, for the budding computer animator. There are only two real choices, Newtek's Lightwave 3D, and Alias|Wavefront's Maya (I don't much like the software personally, but it too is worth a mention because they do TWO things right).

    Both companies just drastically lowered the prices on the packages, making them MUCH more accessible (They're still really expensive, but when you think about how much an animator can make WITH it, you can understand).

    Why aren't more companies doing that? I mean, only professionals can afford the software (And they WILL buy EVERY version, WHEN it comes out), but to become a professional, you have to know the software, and probably have already done some work with it.

    I think more companies should do things like release learning editions of their software (Like A|W), so that people who can't afford the software can atleast gain valuable experience that could help them get somewhere in their chosen profession (Which would in turn mean they could probably afford the software!), the other option is to lower the prices drastically. (which I can't really see any of the other companies doing...)

    Now, to handle as many of the obvious replies as I could think of...

    Q. You keep talking about experience, why not go to school for it?

    A. Uhm, we're talking about not being able to afford software, so you suggest some kind of higher education? And what if the person is say, still in high school?

    Q. What about academic versions of software?

    A. Oh /god/ did I think of that! I mean, come on! When Lightwave was still $2500, you could get an academic copy for $900... Unfortunately, I don't even know anyone who is IN school.

    Q. Get a job hippie!!

    A. Okay, that's not EVEN a question. And, I have one. Also, I am not a hippie.

    Q. Well, if you have a job, why aren't you saving up to buy your software?

    A. I do, I have, I will probably continue to do so until my demise. Thankfully, I was not speaking for myself (not anymore anyway). I was speaking, once again, in general. Some of the greatest minds of our generation are flipping burgers in some McHell(TM) somewhere (or working some equally crappy job). Do you really see someone in such a job (or two, for that matter) being able to save up for such software (realistically. I don't mean over the course of several millenia)? Oh darn. And that one was the next George Lucas...

    In closing:
    I'm actually lucky enough to have managed (Through several arcane rituals, human sacrifices, and a connection), to get a job that allows me to afford my software, (even Lightwave! Although it took saving for a couple versions AND the price drop), but most aren't as fortunate (ESPECIALLY aspiring artists!).

    If companies such as Adobe (And Newtek still, despite their already incredible price drops.) lowered their prices to something more affordable to the average up-and-coming, their userbase would be that much bigger, because those same people who would otherwise either pirate the software, or simply be screwed, are now part of the userbase!

    Of all the things in the world, I think human creativity is one of the most valuable. It would be nice if the companies that supply this generation's paintbrushes felt the same way.

    I've never seen anything modded 'insane rantings' before... Let's see if I can make /. history.

    This ofcourse is all my subjective opinion, and it probably has little-to-no basis in what the rest of you like to call 'reality'.

    Well, that's fine.
    I don't work with reality.
  • is what a person who had at least one parent who was a smurf has to do with privacy.
  • Anyone know where I can get the hacked version?

    :-)
  • and looks like a big fucking ad for audiogalaxy
  • Am I the only one who followed the link to see what people can see about you online and was a bit unimpressed?
    I mean, ok, they can tell if I have javascript turned on.
    ...and?
    Really, the only even remotely sensitive piece of information is my IP and if I am really worried that I'm doing something that people will actually want to TRACK ME DOWN for by subpoenaing my ISP to see who was on IP x at time y, then I should be worried. But if what I'm worried about is personal info being sold or traded for demographics, ads, etc, this means nothing. All a proxy would do is keep the webmaster of sites I visit from being able to count the number of unique IPs that hit them, which is annoying for them, but does nothing for me.
    In other words, the reason that spyware is bad is because it gives away *more* than the basic, useless information that you can get using javascript (oh no, the cops know my screen resolution!). If you avoid spyware in general and are not doing anything that would warrant (literally) your ISP being questioned, WTF is the point of doing everything through an anonymizer as the EFF seems to be advocating? Am I just missing something here?
    • Well, in certain cases (at my university, and some others for instance), by knowing an IP , you can trace it to a host name which is based on the user's last name.

      So you have a hostname that is based on your last name, not too useful right?

      Well, you go to the home page, and type in the last name on the search, hit CTRL-F, type in the part of the host name that is based on the last name, and BINGO.

      You have a full name, address, phone number, major, class standing, and (of course) the full email address.

      I can tell the administration to take it down, but I think it would be better if the explicitly ask you if they can post it, instead of having it buried in the forms (in fact, I can't figure out where I let them do that in the first place)...
  • was i the only one that wept for Carabella when i could get her NO music AND i compromised her privacy? damn that bonzai buddy. damn you.

  • Buy at Concert? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Matthew Weigel ( 888 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @06:20PM (#3740188) Homepage Journal

    Go to a concert, enjoy the artist, buy the album right there. The CDs can be cheaper, they provide instant gratification, they are anonymous with cash (and mostly, they don't accept credit card), and generally more money goes to the artist because of the fewer middle men.

    Oh yeah, and you get to go to a concert, which is usually a better experience than just listening to the CD. Unless it's one of these bands/people that didn't start off playing clubs and such, but jumped into a studio....

    Live music is where you get the most entertainment, and the artist gets the most money.

  • NZ's copyright law sucks at the moment.
    We can't even copy a CD to tape, to listen in the car. Backup copy? Yeah right!
    From here: [rianz.org.nz]

    But what about making a copy for personal use?

    "The law says this is illegal. In some countries it is permitted, but we are not one of them."

    Hopefully the discussion paper [med.govt.nz] will result in some good legislation, but somehow I doubt it :(

    Tim.
  • The flash movie from the BSA makes absolutly no sense... Designers who copy sw usually do it for thier own purposes, and do not replicate it for others. And what the hell does licencing software have to do with fighting a virus? This is pure marketing hype, utter crap, and it bothers me to think that anyone above the age of five is going to go for that little infomercial. And another thing. The BSA is the Boy Scouts of America, dammit.

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